The backlog of retirement claims at the Office of Personnel Management jumped significantly in January thanks to over 15,000 new applications being submitted.

January is normally a very popular time for federal employees to retire, and this year was no exception. OPM received 15,423 new claims and processed 7,061 which caused the backlog of outstanding claims to go from 11,399 to 19,761, a 73% increase.

The number of claims OPM processed was higher than in December, however, it is far short of some other months in which it was able to process over 10,000 claims.

In its latest report, OPM omitted the data on projections regarding the backlog, such as how many claims it anticipated having at the end of each month and how many it estimated it would be able to process in any given month. Instead, the table now shows the number processed in 60 days or less and the average number of days it took to process a case around the 60 day benchmark. Perhaps this looks better in light of January’s setback…

The latest data are included below.

Month

Claims Received

Claims Processed

Inventory

Avg. # of Days to Process Case in 60 days or less

Avg. # of Days to Process Case in more than 60 days

Oct-14

10,155

8,785

14,137

36

104

Nov-14

5,746

5,844

14,039

37

107

Dec-14

4,077

6,447

11,669

45

99

Jan-15

18,629

7,662

22,636

43

91

Feb-15

9,219

7,841

24,014

33

103

Mar-15

5,478

8,898

20,594

46

99

Apr-15

6,292

8,660

18,226

49

74

May-15

7,845

10,697

15,374

47

79

Jun-15

6,920

7,783

14,511

44

99

Jul-15

9,862

7,918

16,455

45

97

Aug-15

7,341

7,446

16,350

45

98

Sep-15

6,300

7,944

14,706

43

94

Oct-15

8,374

10,438

12,642

38

86

Nov-15

6,019

6,099

12,562

37

98

Dec-15

4,753

5,916

11,399

40

104

Jan-16

15,423

7,061

19,761

38

94

Want to see more articles like this one? Sign up for FedSmith's free email lists!